C3 Focus Areas

Kansas Highlighted Project - Teacher Licensure Process Improvement

Posted on July 28, 2014

Federal
legislation places significant emphasis on having a highly effective teacher in
every classroom. Challenges such as
teacher shortages, changes in populations, and lengthy required licensing
processes can affect a state’s ability to ensure an effective teacher is
available. The Kansas Department of
Education (KSDE) was looking for a way to make its teacher licensure and
re-licensure processes more efficient, update old paper processes by using
technology, and minimize the mail and phone time required with clients. To address these needs, the Central
Comprehensive Center (C3) at the University of Oklahoma collaborated with its
partner, the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC) in Houston, Texas,
by engaging KSDE’s Teacher Licensure and Accreditation (TLA) team to examine
and redesign the processes. C3 and APQC
representatives conducted a process audit and began building new processes for
the work by analyzing the current processes, identifying potential barriers,
organizing internal decision-making processes, setting goals, and implementing
new, improved processes.

Since the
collaboration, the TLA team at KSDE has reported sustainable improvements of
the staff members’ capacity to better meet the needs of KSDE and its customers,
the teachers of Kansas. By streamlining
the teacher licensure processes through the use of technology the result was
faster application processing time, an increase in accuracy, and better use of
resources. Processing time for teacher
licensure or re-licensure requests is now reduced, thereby ensuring Kansas can
get highly effective teachers into the classroom as quickly as possible. The TLA team has also reported improvements
in the communication of licensure requirements, online process for in-state
applications, team training and brainstorming, online submission of supporting
documents, search capabilities, specialized consultants, process for walk-ins,
customer service, and IT help. The TLA
team continues to use these process and performance management tools to develop
new licensure guidelines. Costs have
also been reduced. The process of
printing and mailing over 20,000 licenses has been changed from a
labor-intensive paper process to an electronic process. KSDE estimates potential financial savings of
over $60,000 per year ($30,000 in postage and $30,000 in administrative time)
could be realized as a result of this process improvement with C3 and
APQC. The KSDE Director of TLA Dr. Scott
Myers said, “We are consistently working our way through all of these efforts and
are starting to realize some of the rewards of all of this hard work. In fact,
we are launching the home printing of teacher licenses. This seemingly simple step will save KSDE
tens of thousands of dollars a year! Fantastic!”

“State capacity is critical, so what the
Comprehensive Center has done for us is they have allowed us to build that
capacity with their helpful guidance and support for us over the years. Results
from our improvement process with C3 leading the way for us, has been true
honesty. … [T]hat review process allowed us to be really honest with ourselves
… in a way that when we’re done with it, we go WOW look what we did together,”said Kansas Commissioner of Education Dr. Diane DeBacker, in response
to the improved licensure process.

The Central Comprehensive Center at the University
of Oklahoma continues to work with states in its region to build their capacity
to ensure state systems’ efficiency and effectiveness are continually
improved. For
more information, visit the Central Comprehensive Center website to watch a
video on this project atwww.c3ta.org.